harbour

[ hahr-ber ]

noun, verb (used with or without object)Chiefly British.

usage note For harbour

See -or1.

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use harbour in a sentence

  • Evidently he feared the subsequent results to himself of harbouring strangers.

    Mount Everest the Reconnaissance, 1921 | Charles Kenneth Howard-Bury
  • He had borne too much in silence, but that this harbouring of criminals should go on before his face was more than he could stand.

    The Life of Thomas Wanless, Peasant | Alexander Johnstone Wilson
  • Now as I am called Lawman of this country, it would not be seemly for me to break the law by harbouring outlaws.

  • There are few gimcracks and dust-harbouring rubbish within, and what simple furniture there is is clean—above all the bed-linen.

  • Pag said after he thought Thomas wanted to caution us against a bigamist mamma was harbouring.

    Somehow Good | William de Morgan

British Dictionary definitions for harbour

harbour

US harbor

/ (ˈhɑːbə) /


noun
  1. a sheltered port

  2. a place of refuge or safety

verb
  1. (tr) to give shelter to: to harbour a criminal

  2. (tr) to maintain secretly: to harbour a grudge

  1. to shelter (a vessel) in a harbour or (of a vessel) to seek shelter

Origin of harbour

1
Old English herebeorg, from here troop, army + beorg shelter; related to Old High German heriberga hostelry, Old Norse herbergi

Derived forms of harbour

  • harbourer or US harborer, noun
  • harbourless or US harborless, adjective

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012